MASHCHARA (a primitive Galilean – Arab device to prepare wood coal) Mashchara: The process of producing wooden coal. The origin of the name is its color. The Mashchara is associated with the early history of Israel and Palestine, the local landscape and nature. It stands as a metaphor for the political ongoing. • The invisible Mash'chara, two catalogues In 1979 Chefetz began building Mash'chara – a primitive Galilean – Arab device to prepare wood coal. The material he mostly used was logs heaped in a circle: the magic of the Palestinian civilization had worked in a high Danzigerian frequency, and Chefetz walked on the thin line between the aesthetic and the functional. -- Dr. Gideon Ofrat. From the article in catalogue: Yaacov Chefetz. Haifa Museum of Modern Art 1994 • A Romance Unfulfilled … This dialogue between Diab (the Mash'chara builder) and Chefetz must be understood not as external to his art but as the soul of Chefetz's "mash'chara". The dialogue between Chefetz and Diab changed the "mash'chara" from an object to a series of questions. It stared back at both Chefetz and Diab, asking them, "To which of you do I belong? Who created me? Who do I serve?" -- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach, Cornell University, New York NY. Catalogue: Mashchara 2002 < back